This invention is an improvement on the invention disclosed and claimed in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,245,756, issued Jan. 20, 1981.
The primary purpose of the device covered by my prior patent is to set up dominos in the form of a row of closely spaced upstanding dominos so that they can be progressively knocked down. The primary purpose of the present invention is to make substantial improvements both in the quality of the operation of the earlier device and in the quantity of dominos which can be set up in any given time.
In the Background of the Invention portion of the specification of my prior patent, there is set forth a detailed discussion of the nature of the well known recreational activity of setting up dominos in a long row and in closely spaced relationship so that all of the dominos can be knocked down by merely pushing over the first domino in the row. That discussion also covers the problems typically encountered in setting up the dominos. In view of the length and detail of that discussion, it is not deemed necessary to repeat it herein, but rather it is included by reference since it is as applicable to the current invention as it was to the prior invention.
The device of the previous patent was clearly an improvement over the earlier method of setting up dominos, which was to set them up one by one by hand. The disadvantages of this procedure are fully discussed in the prior patent. However, even that device had its limitations and certain inherent disadvantages which tended to offset the advantages thereof. For one thing, the storage capacity of the prior device was somewhat limited in that the supply hopper can hold only a limited number of dominos because they are stacked vertically one on top of another. Since there is a practical to the height of the supply hopper without the device becoming unwieldy or top heavy, the device could probably not accommodate more than about ten to twelve dominos. Thus, each time the device dispensed that number of dominos, it had to be reloaded.
Another factor which severely limited the domino positioning capacity of the prior device is that it could only set up one row of dominos at a time. This not only limited the overall set up capacity, it also placed a limit on how close one row of dominos could be to the next. It is obvious that the rows of dominos could not be spaced more closely than one half the width of the domino placing device, otherwise the wheels of the device would not clear the row already set up while setting up a new row. This deficiency in the prior device can create a serious space problem when it is desired to set up a complex pattern of many hundreds or thousands of dominos in a limited amount of space.
A further disadvantage of my prior invention is in the mechanical complexity of the drive connection between the large supportive wheels and the domino ejecting device so that the domino is ejected from the rear end of the device at the exact same speed at which the device is moving forwardly across a surface. The necessity for this is so that the domino is stationary with respect to the supporting surface at the moment it is ejected from the device in order to assure that it remains in an upstanding position. This is critical because of the nature of dominos, in that they are typically tall and thin, and therefore are very unstable in the directions facing either of the broad faces. Any abrupt change in the rate of movement of the domino as it moves from the floor of the ejecting chamber onto the supporting surface increases the likelihood that the domino will fall over. If it does, and if it should fall in the direction of dominos already ejected and positioned upright in a row, these will fall and the entire pattern of dominos already set up will have to be redone.
The only other domino positioning device of which I am aware is that shown in prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,512 issued Mar. 18, 1980. As is immediately apparent from the specification of this patent, the device is hand held and is adapted to store a certain quantity of dominos and to position them in upstanding relationship as the device is moved across a supporting surface. However, the nature of the positioning mechanism is such that it requires specially made dominos which have a supporting base construction which cooperates with certain portions of the positioning device to hold the dominos in a radial position relative to the positioning device while they are being moved from a storage means to the supporting surface. This device will not function at all with standard dominos. Thus it is entirely impractical from the standpoint of using it to set up a complex pattern containing hundreds of dominos. It also suffers the disadvantage of having limited capacity to set up dominoes because of limited storage space and only setting up one row at a time.